Archive for October, 2006

Thomas Beck has some thoughts about the CIO panel from Software 2006 that I put up on IT Conversations last week. He pulled out a few key quotes:

[On dealmaking] “You’ve got to remember, the people that cut the deal aren’t the people that manage the relationship. I don’t care if the [software] salespeople leave with blood coming out of both of their ears. I’m not going to see those guys again.”

[On the widespread use of wikis and blogs at Motorola] “Where the real work gets done is down in the ranks that interact with each other and exchange information and build ideas and come to conclusions and do stuff. Management is just overhead.”

[On introducing wikis and blogs at Motorola] “I purposefully didn’t tell anyone upstairs or laterally that this was going on until we got to a scale where we couldn’t stop it.”

[On vendor dislikes] “The easiest way for you to watch me pull the trap door lever in my office and drop you into a pit of crocodiles is ‘tell me about your problems.’ ‘Hmm… interesting, we have some software that we think will fit your problems.'”

The New York Times reports some liberal bloggers have embarked on a “Google bombing” campaign designed to lift negative articles about 50 or so Republican candidates to the top of the search results for those candidates’ names. The tactic involves widely linking each mention of a candidate’s name to a single article, thus raising its profile in Google’s page-ranking formula. The effort, headed by MyDD.com contributor Chris Bowers, has been labeled “unscrupulous” and “fascinatingly evil” by conservative bloggers, but Bowers says this is nothing new, noting previous Google-bombs that linked the phrases “flip flopper” with John Kerry and “miserable failure” with George Bush. His bombing, Bowers says, is actually “search engine optimization,” an important new addition to the political tool box. “There are three main differences between the campaign I started and other, similar campaigns,” wrote Bowers. “First, I did it out in the open with full transparency on my blog, using my name, and with my email in full view. Second, it is much more wide ranging, since it has multiple, simultaneous targets. Third, and most importantly, instead of targeting campaign talking points such as ‘flip flopper’ or ‘miserable failure,’ this campaign worked to only use non-partisan media reports. No talking points. No opinion columns. A bare minimum use of alternative media. In other words, this campaign works solely to push news reports made by trusted, mainstream news outlets into the foreground during the final two weeks of the campaign season.”

Avoid doing a really, really stupid thing and discouraging people from using it as such. Not that you’ll be able to anyway. So really, don’t be stupid. We Kiwi’s call it “pissing into the wind” – something every Kiwi lad learns at a young age to be futile. Today, Google starts “pissing into the wind”, asking all of us to watch how we use their name.

So, to spite you I’m going back to Yahooing everything. Actually, Yahoo could probably make hay while the sun shined on this one… Ben says it pretty well over at his blog… Here are Google’s pearls of wisdom…

“A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device that identifies a particular company’s products or services. Google is a trademark identifying Google Inc. and our search technology and services. While we’re pleased that so many people think of us when they think of searching the web, let’s face it, we do have a brand to protect, so we’d like to make clear that you should please only use “Google” when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services.

Here are some hopefully helpful examples.

Usage: ‘Google’ as noun referring to, well, us.Example: ‘I just love Google, they’re soooo cute and cuddly and adorable and awesome!’Our lawyers say: Good. Very, very good. There’s no question here that you’re referring to Google Inc. as a company. Use it widely, and hey, tell a friend.

Usage: ‘Google’ as verb referring to searching for information on, um, Google.Example: ‘I googled him on the well-known website Google.com and he seems pretty interesting.’Our lawyers say: Well, we’re happy at least that it’s clear you mean searching on Google.com. As our friends at Merriam-Webster note, to ‘Google’ means ‘to use the Google search engine to find information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web.’

Usage: ‘Google’ as verb referring to searching for information via any conduit other than Google.Example: ‘I googled him on Yahoo and he seems pretty interesting.’Our lawyers say: Bad. Very, very bad. You can only ‘Google’ on the Google search engine. If you absolutely must use one of our competitors, please feel free to ‘search’ on Yahoo or any other search engine.”

Viki has kindly offered you a free pass to the event if you are up here in the Valley.

On Tuesday 31 October ANZA Technology Network brings the best of Australian technology to Silicon Valley for the ANZA Gateway to the US conference. The range of companies is impressive; from search engine marketing to cool Web 2.0 offerings to nanotech ‘green’ solutions.

We’d like to invite you to be our guest for the day. Space is limited so register now using your VIP pass code viptue to enjoy the Tuesday Company Pitches and lunch as our guest. You can see the full conference program online.